At Lanteglos in the hamlet of Calenick, Giles Blomfield brought the European modernism of Marcel Breuer to a little corner of Cornwall
Lanteglos Calenick, Cornwall, 1960s
In the Cornish hamlet of Calenick, ‘Lanteglos’ (now known as Otter Creek) sits on a slope overlooking the Truro river. It was designed in the early 1960s by local architect Giles Blomfield (1925-2012), a partner in John Crowther & Associates, for himself and his family. A grandson of Edwardian architect Sir Reginald Blomfield, he had studied at the Bartlett School in London, where he also worked in the office of Ernö Goldfinger before returning to Cornwall. The house in Calenick, influenced in its design by the work of modernist European architects such as Marcel Breuer, was conceived to maximise the links between indoors and out, and features extensive fenestration and a cantilevered balcony. This design won the architect what was then the RIBA Bronze Medal for completed buildings in 1964, and articles in the specialised press. The photograph also shows in the foreground a stone sculpture by Roger Leigh, who had been assistant to Barbara Hepworth. Blomfield himself was a sculptor as well as an architect and, in this role, he contributed various works to Canterbury Cathedral, to which he became architect later in his career.